Compositions which provide a combination of cleansing and conditioning to the hair are know in the art. Such shampoo or shower-gel compositions typically comprise one or more surfactants for shampooing or cleansing purposes and one or more conditioning agents. Typically, these conditioning agents are water-insoluble oily materials, cationic polymers or cationic surfactants. One purpose of the conditioning agent is to make the hair easier to comb when wet and more manageable when dry, e.g. less static and fly-away. Another important role, especially for water-insoluble oily conditioning agents, is to provide low friction and ease of combing for dry hair.
It is known to incorporate cationic polymers in hair-washing compositions. For instance. U.S. Pat. No. 6,444,628 discloses an aqueous shampoo comprising, in addition to water, an anionic cleansing surfactant, a cationic polymer and a monoalkyl quaternary ammonium compound.
Such cationic polymers are often used in combination with water-insoluble conditioning oils in order to improve the deposition of the conditioning oils onto the hair. U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,916 discloses the use of cationic polymers as deposition aids.
It has now been found that by using a specific combination of cationic polymers in a hair-washing compositions which comprise small droplets of a water-insoluble oily conditioning agent, problems encountered with prior art washing and conditioning compositions can be overcome. In particular, improved low friction and ease of combing can be obtained for the hair after drying, with a reduction in the heavy, greasy feel that many consumers experience when high charge density cationic polymers and oily conditioning agents are combined in shampoos.